For those of you following the progress of Congress’ dangerous secret quota rules, I’m happy to report that what looked like a retreat on the issue three weeks ago has turned into a full-blown rout.
A new discussion draft of the widely acclaimed US Privacy Rights Act (APRA) has been released. The bill was hailed as a bipartisan, bicameral compromise when it was first introduced and received overwhelming support. The original version contained a detailed blueprint for imposing race, gender and other preferences on algorithms using profiles. After a lengthy analysis of the risks of such an approach in the Warlock conspiracy, a second version of the bill was released, which removed most of the details but still contained some troubling provisions that could would encourage similar preferences, as noted in the second version of the Warlock Conspiracy post.
Now a third discussion draft has been released, which abandons all algorithmic discrimination and civil rights provisions that drive quotas. This is a resounding victory for those of us who oppose the smuggling of racial and gender preferences into the digital infrastructure that will dominate our economies and societies for decades to come.
The bill will go up next week. This remains controversial. This article by R Street’s Brandon Pugh and Steven Ward provides a good summary of these issues. There will be some bare-knuckle Republicans arguing over the bill, a top priority for the retiring chairman of the House Commerce Committee. But at least quotas won’t be part of the negotiations.
Personally, this was an unusual experience for me. No doubt Commerce Committee staff and commissioners have been paying attention to these posts and amending bills to respond to them. But exactly which staff members and which members were never entirely clear. So I can only raise a glass to the unsung heroes who are doing such effective work in the trenches: I promise, if I knew who you were, I would happily buy you a real beer!
